Mind The Gap

America’s British population has taken to the web to voice its displeasure at news that U.S. candy giant Hershey has successfully blocked our much loved U.K.-produced chocolate from being exported to the land of the free.

Tom Hardy is an Ace Guy, Grants Wish for Cancer-Stricken Young Mother

Tom Hardy at lunch with Kayleigh Duff, a 23-year-old cancer patient who revealed her wish to meet the ‘Inception’ star. (Photo: Facebook)

In a news cycle that has seen former child stars flinging bongs out of thirty-story windows and barreling through residential neighborhoods at 100 mph, here’s a beautiful example of celebrity kindness: when 23-year-old Kayleigh Duff appeared on the British chat show This Morning to discuss her battle with a rare and terminal form of liver cancer, she mentioned that one of her life wishes was a date with English actor Tom Hardy, star of Inception, The Dark Knight Rises and countless British dramas.

The sister of Hardy’s fiancee Charlotte Riley saw the interview and reached out to the show. Duff’s friend Katie Birch and Charlotte arranged for Hardy to spend some time with the young mother-of-one: “I nearly died when I saw him,” Duff told the Canterbury Times.

“I was shaking — I just thought we were having a day out in London.” She added that “he was so lovely and down to earth. We had lunch and tea and scones and he bought me a diamond necklace.”

Duff’s story has drawn major national interest in the U.K., with her friend Katie also granting her wish for an elaborate dream wedding. (A male model was even hired as a stand-in for the groom.) Here’s the story via BBC NEWS:

Kevin Wicks

Kevin Wicks founded BBCAmerica.com's Anglophenia blog back in 2005 and has been translating British culture for an American audience ever since. While not British himself - he was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri - he once received inordinate hospitality in London for sharing the name of a dead but beloved EastEnders character. His Anglophilia stems from a high school love of Morrissey, whom he calls his "gateway drug" into British culture.

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America’s British population has taken to the web to voice its displeasure at news that U.S. candy giant Hershey has successfully blocked our much loved U.K.-produced chocolate from being exported to the land of the free.